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From the November 2005 issue of the $100 Plus Club News #97
Update: Still Subverting Union Democracy in 2005
Efforts continue to evade the provisions of the federal Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), the 1959 law that guarantees union democracy for union members. Here are some of the latest methods that officials have found to subvert membership rights in unions:
Illegible notice: For forty years union officials ignored Section 105, which requires them to inform their members of the requirements of the LMRDA. After a series of successful federal court suits, the first initiated by three machinists against the IAM, several unions were finally forced to comply. The Machinists Union agreed to publish a summary of the Act in its magazine and on its web site. So far, so good. But then the Plumbers Union, forced to comply by court order, printed the same text in its magazine: but with blue type on blue paper. The Machinists got the idea and and now the IAM home page link to its description of LMRDA rights is in illegible blue letters on a blue background (the lower left section of their home page). (Once found, the description of union member rights itself is, thankfully, black on white).
Eviscerated locals: The LMRDA requires locals to poll their membership by secret ballot in electing officers or imposing dues or assessments. But inventive officers have devised a way around that provision, especially in the building trades. They have found a loophole. It happens that the law permits "intermediate" bodies to elect officers and to impose dues and assessments without a secret ballot membership vote. And so, locals can be squeezed dry of power, deprived of control over collective bargaining and grievance procedure until they resemble social clubs more than labor organizations. Then the locals are combined into so-called intermediate councils whose officers take over the now vanished powers of the locals. No secret ballot membership election of the omnipotent council officers; no secret ballot membership vote on dues; council delegates take over and shunt the membership aside.
Stifling free speech in the guise of "interference": Before the LMRDA was enacted, a device for suppressing dissent was a union constitutional provision against slander and libel. Unionists who criticized their officers were simply subjected to charges of slander, brought to trial before committees controlled by the very officers they had criticized, found guilty, and fined, suspended, or expelled.
That changed in 1962 when a federal appeals court in Salzhandler vs. Caputo ruled that union trial bodies were not impartial enough or sensitive enough to deal properly with the charges. Aggrieved union officials could file suit in public court -- like any other citizen. But in a portent of things to come, the Operating Engineers, at its last convention, amended its constitution in an obvious attempt to make an end run around Salzhandler. The amended provision subjects to expulsion any member "who willfully engages in slander or libel where such slander or libel is contrary to the responsibility of every member toward the Organization as an institution or specifically interferes with the Organization's performance of its legal or contractual obligations." The new text, in italics, is actually borrowed from the LMRDA itself.
The LMRDA section on free speech ends with the proviso "nothing herein shall be construed to impair the right of a labor organization to adopt and enforce reasonable rules as to the responsibility of every member toward the organization as an institution and to his refraining from conduct that would interfere with its performance of its legal or contractual obligations." And so, by amending the provision on slander and libel with this wording, union officials hope that members will fear criticizing them, but if they do, they can be successfully convicted in the union, not for the slander itself, but for "interference" in carrying out legal or contractual obligations.
Such an amended provision would probably not stand up in court, but to challenge it would require litigation, which by itself would chill free speech. That is because in free speech cases, it is the victimized member who must retain and pay a lawyer. Union officials pay legal fees out of the union treasury.
Other articles on
LMRDA Section 105:
Federal
employees can help enforce members' right to know
Notification
of CSRA rights for Federal employees: text of regulation
Update:
Still Subverting Union Democracy in 2005
Victory:
Federal unions must let their members know
Section
105 Update: Obeying union democracy law, belatedly
Pipefitters win
points in battle for democracy
Some unions hate to say, "you
have legal rights."
Court to IAM: Inform
members of their rights
Is your union in compliance with Section 105
of the LMRDA?
Text of LMRDA Section 105
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